3 Books By Local Cooks

So much for secret recipes. Seattle cooks are letting it all hang out with new books detailing how to concoct treats as tasty as their own. (In the process they reveal a common love of lengthy subtitles.)

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks (Viking; $26.95)Seattle author and chef Kathleen Flinn takes a narrative approach to the cookbook, chronicling the year she spent teaching nine kitchen novices how to wean themselves from frozen and processed foods. Never preachy, Flinn is warm and highly informative.

Cutie Pies: 40 Sweet, Savory, and Adorable Recipes(Andrews McMeel; $16.99) Local Fuel Coffee and High 5 Pie founder Dani Cone takes the pie out of the larder, revealing recipes for delectable crusts; High 5’s trademark piejars, petit-5s and flipsides and piepops (all tiny and tasty); and fillings from PBJ to lemon meringue.

Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts: Secrets and Recipes for the Home Baker(Chronicle Books; $16.95)Seattle brothers Mark and Michael Klebeck lured us into their first Top Pot lair on Capitol Hill in 2002. Now they’re showing us how to DIY, with recipes for 50 favorite doughnuts, including peppermint snowdrifts, pink feather boas and orange-pistachios.